Light Riders hands on

By Nigel Wood, UK
for www.touchgen.com

Published: February 22, 2009

Way back in August last year, I previewed Light Bikes from DSMediaLabs [not to be confused with LightBike], a top down Tron clone where you must survive a grid like arena by avoiding other bikes light trails and trying to trap opponents with your’s. You can read the original story here and an interview with the developer here.

The game now has a new name ‘Light Riders’ and is nearing release. We’ve had a hands on with the current build and it’s pretty enjoyable. While some of you may find the top down and less detailed graphics rather basic compared to the 3D LightBike, I find as a whole that Light Riders is more visually appealing, and certainly easier to play. 3D-ophiles will be happy to know that a 3D view option will be coming in an update quickly following the initial release.

Controls are very simple, with you touching the left or right portions of the screen to turn, and boost and speed buttons in the bottom left and right corners respectively. These speed boosts can help you get ahead of your opponents before cutting them off with your light trails.

Each game is against 3 other colour coded opponents. Either AI controlled or through AdHoc local multiplayer. While in game, you have a small radar/map that shows you where and in what direction your opponent is travelling, but beware that their light trails are not shown, so you need to be alert when trying to follow them. One problem I found with the game and indeed with LightBike, which you might not see it as a big deal, is that I don’t like the way that the bikes are not locked to the grid! It would make lining up turns easier, make the game feel truer to the original film and to me by not making them lock to grid it kinda makes the grid redundant.

As well as new 3D views, the developer promises full online multiplayer with the update. To me this could be a game changer, and for that reason I’ll be holding off on my review until then.

For now check out the in-game screens, below.

Review disclosure: Any games reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note: the resulting review score is never impeded by this fact, all opinions are that of the TouchGen reviewer and not the developer. This is in keeping with our O.A.T.S oath. Read more about O.A.T.S here

2 Comments on "Light Riders hands on"

Legend.inc on Mon, 23rd Feb 2009 5:39 am

Is this worth buying if you own light bike (the 3D one) ?

Ipgn-nige on Mon, 23rd Feb 2009 8:20 am

Once I’ve had a play with the final build I’ll let you know

Light Riders hands on

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